Printronix P8000 Plus Series Administrator's Manual page 79

The IEEE 1284 interface is faster and more versatile than Centronics and supports bidirectional
communication. Configuration of this interface is controlled from the host. Refer to IEEE 1284 Parallel
Interface on page 213 for more details about the available modes (Compatibility, Nibble, and Byte).
Prime Signal
•
Enable (factory default). The parallel port will perform a warm start (reboot) if the host asserts the
prime signal.
•
Disable. The parallel port will not perform a warm start (reboot) if the host asserts the prime signal.
TOF Action
•
Reset (factory default). A form feed is performed before a warm start when the prime signal is
asserted from the host. This setting is used only if the prime signal parameter is enabled.
•
Do Nothing. Nothing occurs before a warm start when the prime signal is asserted from the host.
Buffer Size in K
This option configures the amount of memory allocated for the IEEE 1284 parallel port buffer. You can
specify between 1 and 16 Kbytes, in 1-Kbyte increments. The default is 16K.
NOTE: H-Series and OpenPrint HD products have a range of 1 to 256 and a default of 64K.
Auto Trickle
Auto Trickle is used to prevent a host computer from timing out because the parallel interface was busy
for too long. When Auto Trickle is enabled and the printer's buffers are almost full, the printer will begin to
trickle data in (at the rate set in the Trickle Time menu) until the buffers start to empty.
Trickle Time
When the printer is printing data from a host and a second job is received by the printer from a different
host, Trickle Time prevents the second host from timing out while it is waiting for its data to be printed. In
order to support this feature, the port has to be able to accept data from the host and store it for future
use.
For example, if the printer is printing a job from the serial port, and then receives a second print job from
the parallel port, the data from the parallel port will "trickle" bit by bit into the printer buffer to prevent a
timeout error from being sent back to the host connected to the parallel port.
The selected value is the time that the printer waits before getting the next byte of data from the host. The
Trickle Time value should be less than the host time out value, but not too much shorter or else the
printer fills up its buffer too fast.
Offline Process
•
Disable (factory default). When set to disable, the printer does not process parallel data while offline.
•
Enable. When set to enable, the printer continues to process (but not print) the current parallel job
while the printer is offline until the printer's buffer is full.
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